1. Technical Field
The present invention relates generally to technology migration for integrated circuits (ICs), and more particularly, to a method, system and program product for technology migration for an IC with radical design restrictions.
2. Related Art
Design migration is an essential process to achieve maximum layout productivity in very large-scale integrated (VLSI) circuit designs. Conventional graph-based compaction techniques were developed to translate a symbolic layout to a physical layout based on simplistic edge-based ground rules. These techniques have also been used to solve the design migration problem. More recently, a minimum layout perturbation formulation of the design migration problem results in a method that preserves the integrity of the source layout. While existing design migration software continues to be fine tuned, its functionality has become relatively mature. However, as technology is progressing into the sub-wavelength regime, new layout challenges have emerged in the form of groupings of fundamental design restrictions, which is sometimes referred to in the art as “radical design restrictions” (hereinafter “RDR”). RDR is proposed to better enable alternating phase shifted mask designs and control line-width on the polysilicon-conductor level in ultra-deep submicron technologies. RDR requires, for example, a limited number of narrow line widths, a single orientation of narrow features, narrow features placed on a uniform and coarse pitch, a uniform proximity environment for all critical gates and a limited number of pitches for critical gates. This regular design style presents a new challenge to the design migration solution, and demands new functionalities in the existing design migration software.
In view of the foregoing, there is a need in the art to address the problems of the related art.